Negative information tends to influence evaluations more strongly than comparably extreme positive information. To test whether this negativity bias operates at the evaluative categorization stage, the authors recorded event-related brain potentials (ERPs), which are more sensitive to the evaluative categorization than the response output stage, as participants viewed positive, negative, and neutral pictures. Results revealed larger amplitude late positive brain potentials during the evaluative categorization of (a) positive and negative stimuli as compared with neutral stimuli and (b) negative as compared with positive stimuli, even though both were equally probable, evaluatively extreme, and arousing. These results provide support for the hypothesis that the negativity bias in affective processing occurs as early as the initial categorization into valence classes.

The degree to which perceivers automatically attend to and encode social category information was investigated. Event-related brain potentials were used to assess attentional and working-memory processes on-line as participants were presented with pictures of Black and White males and females. The authors found that attention was preferentially directed to Black targets very early in processing (by about 100 ms after stimulus onset) in both experiments. Attention to gender also emerged early but occurred about 50 ms later than attention to race. Later working-memory processes were sensitive to more complex relations between the group memberships of a target individual and the surrounding social context. These working-memory processes were sensitive to both the explicit categorization task participants were performing as well as more implicit, task-irrelevant categorization dimensions. Results are consistent with models suggesting that information about certain category dimensions is encoded relatively automatically.Categorization is widely viewed as a sensible and efficient way to order and simplify a complex social world (Bodenhausen & Macrae, 1998;Brewer, 1988;Fiske & Neuberg, 1990;Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2000), but when applied to people, the process itself might not be so simple. This is because people can often be classified simultaneously along multiple dimensions. A complete understanding of social categorization must address how such multiply categorizable individuals are assigned to social group membership. Toward this end, some have suggested that all categories relevant to an impression-formation target are activated in parallel when multiply categorizable individuals are perceived (Bodenhausen & Macrae, 1998;Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2000;Macrae, Bodenhausen, & Milne, 1995). Others have suggested that this automatic activation occurs more narrowly for certain wellpracticed dimensions such as race, gender, and age (Brewer, 1988;Bruner, 1957;Fiske & Neuberg, 1990;Stangor, Lynch, Duan, & Glass, 1992). Regardless of the specific categories afforded automatic status, both assumptions have important implications: To the extent that beliefs and affective reactions are associated with social categories, automatic activation of social category judgments would make this information readily available to influence subsequent processing stages.Although much has been learned about the ease with which stereotypes and prejudice are activated, less is known about the categorization process itself and the degree to which it occurs automatically. This may be attributable in part to the difficulty in measuring early attentional processes. It is not obvious, for instance, that perceivers would be able to accurately report when social category information becomes available and the relative importance of different dimensions at very early stages of processing. Consequently, when categorization has been studied, it has sometimes been assessed indirectly through outcomes such as stereotype activation (e.g., Macrae et al., 1995). C...

Recent studies have shown that the late positive component of the event-related-potential (ERP) is enhanced for emotional pictures, presented in an oddball paradigm, evaluated as distant from an established affective context. In other research, with context-free, random presentation, affectively intense pictures (pleasant and unpleasant) prompted similar enhanced ERP late positivity (compared with the neutral picture response). In an effort to reconcile interpretations of the late positive potential (LPP), ERPs to randomly ordered pictures were assessed, but using the faster presentation rate, brief exposure (1.5 s), and distinct sequences of six pictures, as in studies using an oddball based on evaluative distance. Again, results showed larger LPPs to pleasant and unpleasant pictures, compared with neutral pictures. Furthermore, affective pictures of high arousal elicited larger LPPs than less affectively intense pictures. The data support the view that late positivity to affective pictures is modulated both by their intrinsic motivational significance and the evaluative context of picture presentation.

In many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines, women are outperformed by men in test scores, jeopardizing their success in science-oriented courses and careers. The current study tested the effectiveness of a psychological intervention, called values affirmation, in reducing the gender achievement gap in a college-level introductory physics class. In this randomized double-blind study, 399 students either wrote about their most important values or not, twice at the beginning of the 15-week course. Values affirmation reduced the male-female performance and learning difference substantially and elevated women's modal grades from the C to B range. Benefits were strongest for women who tended to endorse the stereotype that men do better than women in physics. A brief psychological intervention may be a promising way to address the gender gap in science performance and learning.

Recent studies have shown that the late positive component of the event-related-potential (ERP) is enhanced for emotional pictures, presented in an oddball paradigm, evaluated as distant from an established affective context. In other research, with context-free, random presentation, affectively intense pictures (pleasant and unpleasant) prompted similar enhanced ERP late positivity (compared with the neutral picture response). In an effort to reconcile interpretations of the late positive potential (LPP), ERPs to randomly ordered pictures were assessed, but using the faster presentation rate, brief exposure (1.5 s), and distinct sequences of six pictures, as in studies using an oddball based on evaluative distance. Again, results showed larger LPPs to pleasant and unpleasant pictures, compared with neutral pictures. Furthermore, affective pictures of high arousal elicited larger LPPs than less affectively intense pictures. The data support the view that late positivity to affective pictures is modulated both by their intrinsic motivational significance and the evaluative context of picture presentation.